As technology attempts to make life easier, plot holes can sometimes develop. Take for instance facial recognition technology. Currently an imperfect technology, yet that doesn’t stop governments all over the world from using it to track its citizens. Despite claims that the technology is biased and inaccurate, it is still being used with growing frequency. Especially in China.
For instance, a subway station in China is trialing a system where riders would pay their fares using facial recognition technology.
According to reports, the trial is currently underway at Futian subway station in the Chinese city of Shenzhen where riders entering the station can scan their faces using the screen where they would typically scan their phones or subway cards. Once confirmed, the subway fare is deducted from a previously linked bank account established before entering the station and following registration of a rider’s face data.
Some obvious benefits of such a system include the elimination of problems like forgotten subway cards and low balances. Yet, the facial recognition technology also means that the rider's journey will be closely tracked. However, people living in China are familiar with hefty surveillance as they move throughout the country. Sophisticated surveillance systems can be found in just about every corner of the country, capturing details about residents including face, age, gender and time spent in the region.
China, well known for its technological prowess, already uses facial recognition for everything from detecting and punishing jaywalkers to using AI to detect unhygienic behaviors in restaurant kitchens. Paying with facial recognition is also not an entirely new concept. Yum China, the operator of such brands as KFC in China was the first company to accept mobile payments using facial recognition technology.
As the days where we begin paying for everything using our faces draw closer, let’s hope that the technology is perfected, eliminating its inherent biases and, of course, addressing other details that hinder the accuracy of facial recognition technology such as the matter of lookalikes, the progression of time…and, potentially, bad hair days. Some mornings, I look relatively normal going out the door, other mornings, under the right lighting and going on little sleep, I might be mistaken for the guy on the cover of Jethro Tull’s Aqualung album…a fact that might present issues when the technology is used exclusively in place of other forms of ID.
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